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Topic: Skinning A Deer / Cleaning a Deer (Read 25273 times)

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HOW TO SKIN A DEER

Once you've got your deer out of the woods, it's easiest to skin andquarter the animal if it's hanging up. Hanging with a gambrel and hoist iseasiest, but if you don't have one, you can hang it with a piece of ropetied to each leg. Also, hang the animal by its back legs. This will allowany heat that still inside the body to rise and exit the body. If you hangwith the head up, the heat gets inside the chest cavity and can't easilyescape.

Below is a picture of all of the tools you'll need to get the skin off,quarter, and debone a deer, a couple of sharp knives, a hack saw, and oneor two things to sharpen the knives. Always remember, 'Time Spent WhettingAin't Wasted'. One of the knives is for when you cut through hair/skin andwhen you're cutting around a bone. The other is for strictly skinning.The knife that cuts through the hair/skin will dull quicker, and isn't usedas much as the other. Your other knife will keep a good sharp edge longerwhen it's used only for skinning.

Make a slice between the tendons and the bone of the back legs between themetatarsal gland and the hoof. The metatarsal gland is the light coloredarea you can see below the hook of the gambrel. Some people make a cut atthe hock of the leg, right at the tarsal gland. I recommend not doing thisin that you'll get the scent of the tarsal gland on your knife andpotentially spread it over the entire deer as you're working it up. Also,there's no need to remove the tarsal glands from the deer (unless you'regoing to save them for future hunts if it is a buck). Just as there's noneed to cut the throat of a deer after its dead, there's no need to removethe tarsal glands. All circulation has stopped.

After you've got the animal hung, you should have something like this.

Now, either lower the animal down to where the hock of the leg (at thetarsal gland) is at a good working height or get something to stand on toraise yourself up to where the hock is. Make a cut through the hair andskin all the way around the leg, right below the tarsal gland (try not toget into the tarsal gland though).

When making this cut, watch and don't cut through the tendon that's on theback of the leg (the white area I'm pointing at). It makes skinning easierif this isn't cut. Repeat this cut on the other leg.

Pull out the skin a little at this tendon and start making a cut throughthe skin down the back of the leg (between the brown hair and the whitehair). You'll do this with both legs, with the cuts meeting below theanus.

Start up at the top (where your initial cut was), and start skinning theskin off. Grab it with one hand and pull. Anywhere where the skin showssigns of getting stuck or is a little hard, just use your knife a little tofree it. I usually do the outside side of both legs and then move aroundto the inside, but it doesn't really matter.

Here's one showing me starting on the inside of the legs.

Once you get the skin down to the top of the hams (near the tail). If youhaven't cut the anus out already, you'll do it now. Cut the skin loose allthe way around it.

Now, start taking you knife and cut it loose on the inside of the pelvicbone anywhere where it's attached.

Once you've got it cut loose pretty well from the back, go around to thefront (underside of the deer) and reach up inside the pelvic bone and grabthe short piece of colon that's left and pull it out.

By now on your skinning you should be down to the tail. To cut the tailoff, find a joint in the tail up close to the base and cut through thejoint.

With the tail cut off, continue pulling/skinning the hide on down. By nowyou've probably also had to raise the deer up some to keep the area you'reworking on at an easy working height.

On the belly of the deer, near the fronts of the back legs, there's a bigwad of fat that needs to be cut off. When cutting this off, just cut thefat loose and give it a pitch in your scrap bucket. Try not to get intothe meat that's on the ribs. You'll want to leave the meat on the sides ofthe ribs. Cut the fat away from the legs and skin on both sides.

Now, continue pulling/skinning the hide on down the back and sides.

You can usually just grab the skin and pull down and it will come off atthis point. Anywhere there's some resistance, just use your knife to helpyou skin.

At this point, you should be down to the shoulders and brisket. The largeportion of red meat in the center of the picture below is the brisket.Make your cuts so that you leave this section of meat on the carcass.There will also be some fat on it. Just leave it for the time being.

By now, the skin is probably getting pretty tight and hard to skin. Ifyou're going to have a shoulder mount done of the deer, don't make thefollowing cut!!!! If you're not going to have a shoulder mount done,you'll want to cut the skin to make the skinning process a little easier.Reach up under the skin with your knife and stick the point through. Pullthe knife toward you all the way to cut the skin open.

Now you'll need to work on the front legs. In the picture below, where mythumb and index finger are, you'll want to ring the skin, cutting it allthe way around the leg. Just grab the leg and bend it. Above the bend iswhere you'll cut.

Once you've got the skin cut all the way around, cut through any meat andtendons all the way down to the bone. At your cut, take a hack saw and cutthrough the leg bone.

After you've gotten the legs cut off, continue skinning on down to the endof the brisket. The picture below is what you should have.

Put your knife blade in down at the bottom of the leg where you cut it off.Cut up toward the brisket on both legs. In the picture above, you'll alsowant to cut the area of skin that's between the front legs up to thebrisket. After you've got the cuts done, the skin should be loose all theway up the legs and at the brisket.

Again, if you're going to have a shoulder mount done of the deer, watchmaking any cuts up around the shoulders and brisket so that you don't ruinthe hide. Taxidermists can do some stitching to repair some holes, butthey can't work miracles. Below are some pictures of some of the shouldermounts I have, and the area you should be careful around.

To continue skinning the deer, start pulling/skinning the hide off of thefront legs.

After you've got the skin off of the legs, you should be down to the neck.Continue skinning down the neck, splitting the skin on the underside as yougo.

The skin is tight around the neck, so you'll need to use your knife quite abit. Just take it slow and continue skinning until you're down to aroundthe base of the skull. For a deer that you're going to have a shouldermount done of, you won't be able to get all of the meat out of the neck.Just skin it down as far as you can and then cut through the neck meat andbones.

Once you get down to the base of the skull (or as far as you can), cutthrough the meat on the neck to the bones. Cut all the way around withyour knife, and then cut through the bones with your hack saw.

If you have a slow internet connection, and some of the pictures show up as a box with a red "X" in the corner, just right click on the picture with your mouse and go to "Show Picture". The individual picture will then load. Do this with others also that may not have loaded.

I'm in no way an expert on skinning deer. This is just the way that I do it and have found to be the easiest.